Effect of diet and bacterial clearance on energy expenditure in the cockroach Periplaneta americana
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Date
2016-03-30
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Abstract
Gut microbiota presumably constitutes an important source of essential nutrients in insects. To study the effect of microbiota on the nutritional state of animals, it is common to use antibiotics and observe the effects of bacterial clearance. However, there might be a confounding effect between the physiological effects of nutritional stress and those produced by the antibiotic itself. In this study, we investigated the effect of clearance of gut microbes in the American Cockroach (P. americana). We fed cockroaches with either a high quality diet (dog food) or a low quality diet (dog food, 30%, mixed with cellulose, 70%). Within each group, we administered the antibiotic Chloramphenicol in a low dose (~500 ppm) or a high dose (~ 5000 ppm), and we kept animals free of antibiotic. We measured energy expenditure of cockroaches using the manual bolus integration technique, on the day they were assigned to each group and seven days after treatment. On day seven, we extracted DNA from cockroach guts and we run quantitative PCR to determine bacterial load. With this design, we propose that we are going to be able to tease apart the effects of diet and antibiotic dose on the nutritional state of animals.
Description
Agriculture/Environmental Science: 3rd Place (The Ohio State University Denman Undergraduate Research Forum)
Keywords
Entomology, Nutrition, Gut Microbiota, Antibiotics, Metabolism